theEweekly Wrap: Icann, iPhone and I hate social media

Historic approval

This week saw the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (Icann) board of directors approve a plan that brings about an historic change to the internet's domain name system. Until now only 22 domain name endings – or generic top level domains (gTLD) – have been approved by the board, but the recent approval will see this number increase dramatically. Businesses, organisations, brands, and even individuals will be able to apply from 12 January 2012 to create a unique domain suffix. This opens up a wealth of possibilities for the future of gTLDs, providing they meet the requirements from Icann first. Brands and companies will be able to market themselves in particular ways depending on the gTLDs they design.

Release date rumours

Rumours are rife yet again with regards to the iPhone's next release. The latest gossip suggests the release date is set to be this September, but Apple has not confirmed anything. Debates about how different the new offering will be from last year's iPhone 4 are also circulating, with many saying it will be pretty similar and possibly simply called the iPhone 4S or 4G. Bloomberg reports that it will be an improved version, however, with the same A5 processor that the iPad 2 uses, and an 8 megapixel camera. One thing we do know is that it will sport the new iOS 5 and will be able to access Apple's iCloud data storing and sharing system. There are also suggestions that soon after its release Apple will be offering a mid-range phone to open up its technology to a broader audience.

You're not my friend

Aaron Sorkin, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for The Social Network film, has admitted this week that he has deleted his account on the site. The film, which depicts how the Facebook site was invented, has often faced criticism for being created by people who are not savvy with web 2.0. Sorkin, speaking at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, said: "I have a lot of opinions on social media that make me sound like a grumpy old man sitting on the porch yelling at kids." Jesse Eisenberg, who played Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the film, has also admitted to not using the site.

Fashion in the hands of the consumer

The era of social media opens up more opportunities for both consumers and businesses alike. For the first time a brand can go directly to consumers in an instant and gain an idea of their likes/dislikes and wants/needs, bypassing the long process of in-depth market research. In the same way, consumers can more easily access brands directly in order to openly reveal what they like or dislike about a brand. This makes it an exciting time for an industry such as fashion, which is so highly focused on the most recent trends.

Communicate with brands

Many brands have begun to recognise this lucrative position that they find themselves in, and have been exploiting the situation. Brands can ask consumers, via the mediums of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even their own e-commerce sites, which designs they like at the moment, and which designs they'd be happy to buy. This helps companies manage stock, create new designs, and trial a response to a design before creating it – saving money at every point.

In addition to this, the ability to pass judgement so easily gives customers much more involvement in the production process and increases the likelihood that they'll get exactly what they want.

Be your own brand

Next recently launched an initiative to crowdsource the face of its next campaign. Contenders were invited to upload their photos to the website, and then the public could vote for the winner either via Facebook or on the Next website. Other websites, however, are asking consumers to be involved directly in the production process of their clothes. Fashionstake 'democratise' fashion by asking customers to rate potential designs, and producing the winning designs en mass. For more tailored pieces, sites such as Styleshake and Blanklabel allow customers to design each and every aspect of their item. Styleshake users go on the site and select the exact material to be used before choosing the shape of each aspect of the item, be it the sleeves, neckline, body or trimmings and decorations.

Get what you want

These new processes are great for fussy shoppers who can never find exactly what they want on the high street. They also give the ability for fashionistas, who want something original, to obtain bespoke pieces at a fraction of the usual cost. For men and women who struggle to find clothing that fits properly, sites like these mean they can finally have outfits that fit perfectly, without having to visit a tailors or paying through the roof.

The increase in online activity through social media and the growth of e-commerce sites gives a new dimension to the fashion industry. Smaller designers are now able to compete with bigger named brands in a way that may see customers moving away from the high street. Dictating the latest trends and styles is no longer the preserve of the big fashion houses.

theEweekly Wrap: Court cases, collaborations and Project Spartan

Power networking

A huge joint venture was announced this week that could revolutionise mobile technology in the UK. Networks O2, Vodafone and Everything Everywhere – itself a joint venture between Orange and T Mobile – are to collaborate in an effort to boost uptake of the mobile wallet and other payment services. Contactless payments were launched in May 2011 by Orange, Barclaycard and Samsung, but The Next Web speculated that the partnership would apply for a license "removing the need for third-party partnerships" – namely, with banks. The venture will result in "targeted offers and deals" for users, while "retailers and advertisers will be able to deliver much richer marketing campaigns", according to Ronan Dunne, CEO of O2 parent company Telefónica. Once approved by the relevant authorities, the project is set to go ahead by the end of the year. The only large UK mobile network left out of the agreement is Three.

Complete disaster

A four-star hotel in north-east Ireland is suing Google over the autocomplete suggestions on its name. Typing just the first eight letters of the Barrymascanlon Hotel in Dundalk currently brings up an results for 'Barrymascanlon receivership'. The hint of financial trouble has reportedly led to the popular wedding venue being inundated with calls from worried couples. The hotel is now asking for an injunction against that particular autocomplete result, but not asking for damages or suing for libel. Google has been taken to court – and lost – in the past over autocomplete results deemed libellous. But as is explained by Danny Sullivan in a Search Engine Land blog on the science behind autocomplete, the results are based solely on searches that have already been made, and sometimes influenced by the location of the searcher. Of course, certain results have been manually removed, including references to piracy and hate, so there's no reason Google will not be able to grant the hotel's request.

This is Sparta?

A leak was reported this week by TechCrunch concerning a Facebook photos app for mobile. The documents and image mock-ups apparently show a kind of photo-based social network, complete with tagging, captions, location tags and a photo news feed. However, news broke yesterday of further Facebook innovations that could be even more of a game changer. Facebook is currently working on something called Project Spartan, which is understood to be a new mobile platform that uses HTML5. According to TechCrunch, this is: "aimed squarely at working on the iPhone (and iPad). But it won’t be distributed through the App Store as a native application, it will be entirely HTML5-based and work in Safari. Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control." This is one battle we can't wait to see.

The Manchester Masters

The Manchester Masters is a unique scheme designed to keep top graduates in the city. Now embarking on its third year the program offers ten top students the ability to live, work and study in the city centre. Students undertake a gruelling, Apprentice-style series of tests where they compete for a place in the final ten. The chosen few then begin a year where they each work for four different businesses across the city, while also studying for an MSc in Business.

A busy year to say the least - but an amazing opportunity. Some of the city's top businesses are involved in the scheme, meaning that the students are able to gain real experience in the working world. theEword is a firm advocate of the scheme, recognising that it is important for businesses to harness the talents of young graduates. To date, theEword has nurtured 5 'Manchester Masters'; Chris Greener, Rick Roberts, Emily McLeave, Jamie Goodwin and lastly me, Nicola Hughes.

It was January 2010 when I uploaded my YouTube application. This process alone made me realise it wasn't going to be an easy option, but I was excited when I got invited to go to the assessment-style interview. After competing and subsequently being awarded a place, the real excitement started.

This year has taught me countless invaluable lessons. I feel the knowledge and experience I've gained will benefit me no end in the future. I started out with no business or marketing knowledge and quite frankly felt like I had little to offer a company, other than a good attitude and willingness to learn.

But working in four great Manchester businesses; (JAMpr, Pets at Home, Manchester Confidential and theEword) over the past year has given me, above all, a confidence in my own ability. The course has given me the opportunity to work with some of the area's top business and marketing individuals who have been a great inspiration and offered priceless advice. It has assured me that I can enter a career of my choosing and be successful, providing I maintain my determination.

The scheme is currently taking applications for next year's course, and willing candidates can apply through the Manchester Masters website. It's an experience I'd recommend to anyone.

theEweekly Wrap: Consoles, Facebook tags and Panda 2.2

Sony sorry

The E3 2011 conference in Los Angeles took place this week, with gaming companies showing off their latest inventions. Sony took to the stage to reveal their successor to the popular PSP, a next generation portable christened Vita. The handheld device will feature optional 3G and a cloud save function, enabling players to continue a game from the Vita on their PS3 and vice versa. Sony spokesperson Jack Tretton also took the opportunity to apologise for the recent PlayStation Network hack, in which the personal details of millions of customers are thought to have been stolen. E3 also saw the long-anticipated unveiling of the Nintendo Wii U, due for release in spring 2012. The controller features a touchscreen and a front-facing camera, as well as the usual Wii controls and motion sensor. It seems an unpopular decision, as Nintendo's stock fell five per cent following the announcement.

Tags for the memories

Facebook has begun rolling out a new photo tagging system that uses facial recognition technology. Tag Suggestions appears after uploading photos to an album, and the technology groups together photographs that it deduces are of the same people, saving the user time when tagging. A trial run by theEword revealed it to be reasonably accurate, as long as the subjects are forward facing, well-lit, and have a neutral facial expression. The service has stirred anger among users, however, as nobody was explicitly asked whether they wanted to use it. There is an option to turn it off, and only existing friends can be recognised; but it seems these fresh concerns over Facebook photo privacy are in fact more to do with the site learning what users look like. Tag Suggestions was implemented in the US in December 2010.

Search updates

Upcoming changes in for the SEO industry were revealed at SMX Advanced, a search marketing conference in Seattle. The most exciting (some might say daunting) revelation was made during a question and answer session with Google's Matt Cutts and Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan. Cutts revealed that another algorithm update, Panda 2.2, has been approved and is soon to be rolled out. SEL says this will target once and for all – Google hopes – "sites that scrape and re-publish content and are out-ranking the original source of the content". The first Google Panda update hit search results in April 2011. Meanwhile, Microsoft search engine Bing unveiled an updated set of Webmaster tools nicknamed Honey Badger – which some believe is a thinly veiled reference to the Bing Sting of earlier this year, which Google codenamed Honey Pot.

Google.co.uk or Google.com – which do you prefer?

When the moment strikes and you need to 'google' something, which address do you type into your browser? Is it Google.com, Google.co.uk or is it a totally different country's domain?

With Google offering over 160 different domains across the globe there's plenty of options to choose from when you're in need of an instant answer to a burning question. Google is constantly acquiring new domains for smaller countries or regions and now offers users their own sites in overseas British territories and dependencies such as Google Jersey, Google Guernsey, Google Gibraltar and Google Isle of Man.

Of course these sites are unlikely to gain huge amounts of traffic, but if your site or business is based in one of these areas then you could potentially attract a far more relevant audience.

How do others see Google?

If using the Google Chrome browser, people from the UK will automatically be taken to Google.co.uk. However, it is possible to select 'Go to Google.com' to obtain what is considered a 'Global search'. If selecting a foreign domain, users are also given the option of different languages on the homepage. For instance, Google.je is also offered in French – presumably due to its geographical location.

Although you may be led to believe that using a different domain to search will show you how Google appears in that specific country, this is not the case. Google is far more complex than that. Because Google can identify and take into consideration your geographical location it tailors results accordingly. So, if you use Google.com to search for something in England you will still return different results from someone who uses the same key term in the US. This can pose an issue for businesses who trade in foreign countries but are based in the UK.

See Google from a different perspective

Supposing your business sells in the US and you'd like to see how you rank for your key term in America – If you simply type your key term into Google you are more likely to return results relating to the fact you are in the UK. So how can you view Google in the same way that your American friend can, without catching a flight across the Atlantic? Again, clever Google has created an option for doing this. If you type &gl=US at the end of your search URL, for example, you will be able to see how someone in America would see your search.

This is a really good technique for assessing where your key terms rank in other countries. The fact that Google offers domains for smaller territories offers a great opportunity for companies based in these regions, or who trade there. Make sure you don't miss out.

theEweekly Wrap: Prototypes, pics and the Pentagon

Windows 8

Microsoft has unveiled a prototype for a new OS, a successor to Windows 7. Demonstrations of the new software were given at press conferences in California and Taiwan, and revealed in an official video. Windows president Steven Sinofsky said: "What we tried to do with Windows 8 was reimagine what we want to do with a PC. We coloured outside the lines." Tentatively dubbed Windows 8, the OS will run on phones, tablets, laptops and desktops, presenting a unified appearance whether the device is touchscreen or mouse-controlled. The live, customisable app tile format of the home screen bears many similarities to the Windows Phone 7 OS; Mashable reports that the phone development team was actually "heavily involved" in this project. It is expected to become available in autumn 2012.

The hacking blame game

There was a hack on Google's Gmail service this week, fuelling a row between the search giant and Chinese officials. The attack saw login details of Chinese political activists, as well as government officials from the US and South Korea, stolen in a phishing scam. Hackers sent out emails containing malware or bad links, leading to sites which would collect the user's data. The attack originated from an IP address in Jinan, China; however, the Chinese government has rejected accusations that it was involved. Yesterday, blame was put on Jinan's Lanxiang vocational school, which trains computer scientists for the military as well as chefs and hairdressers. Lanxiang was previously linked to hacking in a 2010 New York Times report, but Google has not revealed whether it suspects the school is involved in the recent attack. The White House is investigating the Google hack. Earlier this week, the Pentagon moved to classify cyber attacks as an 'act of war'.

Top of the tweets

Twitter launched a new search function on Wednesday, partnering with Firefox and Photobucket. Entering a term in the search box or clicking on a hashtag or trending topic will now lead the user to a results screen featuring tweets, top videos and top photos. The latter also has a 'view all' option, leading to a gallery of images from across the site related to that term. As for tweets, the 'top' results appear first, as opposed to the previous order of most recent first. The official blog post on the topic revealed further innovations, such as a new version of Firefox which enables hashtag or profile searches from the address bar. The most noticeable change, however, was announced by chief executive Dick Costolo at California's D9 conference: users will soon be able to tweet a photo directly from Twitter.com or the official Twitter apps, cutting out third party photo sharing clients such as Twitpic.